WHAT?

Why Tonight’s Episode of Game of Thrones Changed the Rules Forever

Our regular Game of Thrones recapper, Mike Hogan, will have a full recap of tonight’s episode, “Oathkeeper,” up soon. (Update: here it is!) In the meantime, this post does discuss some important plot points from the episode, so proceed with caution. Let’s get into that so-called game changer and why book readers and show watchers alike shouldn‘t worry too much.

Something massive happened inside the plot tonight of Game of Thrones, but that’s not the real game changer. The real game changer is that for the first time, in a truly significant way, the book readers were as surprised as the show watchers. That’s right, the reign of the smug book reader is over. Or, at least, it’s on temporary hiatus. Because, yes, the smug book readers can still helpfully explain why they were so thrilled to see Tommen’s cat Ser Pounce, or why they were as excited as Brienne was to see Jaime’s sword Oathkeeper. All that is still true. You can’t take that away from them. But everything starting with the mutineers at Craster’s Keep (those charming rapists using skulls for goblets) was off. the. map. We’ve see the show veer off in non-book directions before, but not like this.

Because yes, show watchers, we book readers were just as confused, elated, and wary as you were when that White Walker trotted off into the great white nothingness. For the first time, we couldn’t turn to you smugly and say, “oh you’re going to love this.” We have no idea if you’re going to love this. We have no flipping idea what is going on.

Last year we went out to Santa Fe for a week to sit down with him
[Martin] and just talk through where things are going, because we
don’t know if we are going to catch up and where exactly that would
be. If you know the ending, then you can lay the groundwork for it.
And so we want to know how everything ends. We want to be able to set
things up. So we just sat down with him and literally went through
every character.

Martin added, “I can give them the broad strokes of what I intend to write, but the details aren’t there yet. I’m hopeful that I can not let them catch up with me.” So, no, book readers, I don’t know if whatever happened out there in the Fortress of Solitude will turn out the way we want it to, but at least we know one thing: it’s in line with the author’s vision. This is also some kind of solution for the constant concern that the show is going to catch up with the books. I’m not saying it’s the right solution, but adding material certainly buys them time. As for you, show watchers, well, it’s too bad you didn’t turn the tables on your smug friends tonight and film their faces the way they did yours during the Red Wedding. That would have been a sight.